The kettle started to rattle on the stove. Wade watched her a moment longer, then went back to the kitchen. He moved like the cabin belonged to him now. Like she belonged in it becausehe had decided she did. He took a box of tea from one of the cabinets.
When the kettle whistled, Wade poured the water, added a splash of cream to one mug, and carried it over. He set it on the coffee table near her.
“I don’t want it,” she said.
“Drink it.” He took the other mug to the square kitchen table and sat down. From there, he could see her, the door, and the front windows. He took a careful sip, then set the mug down. “You can refuse me all you want, but I know you’ll come around. Like you always do.”
Reese kept both hands over her belly. “What happens if I don’t?”
Wade looked at her over the rim of the mug. “We’ll stay here until you do.”
The words landed quietly. That made them worse.
“I rented this place for three weeks,” he said. “If we need more time, I’ll extend it.”
He stood and opened the refrigerator. It was stocked with groceries. Meat wrapped in butcher paper, eggs, milk, vegetables, bread.
Then he took the cast-iron pan off the wall and started making dinner.
Reese sat on the couch with steam rising from the mug he had put in front of her. Wade was not trying to win tonight. He had bought enough time to force her into submission.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
howlingin his ears so loudly he thought he might shift in the car. He then turned on some soft jazz to help himself calm down.
They left Fate Mountain on the eastbound highway with the sun shining over the treetops. For a while there were still houses set back from the highway, an old man in a rocker on the front porch, a horse grazing in a pasture bright with late-afternoon sun.
The road then opened into longer stretches of timber and dry grass. The sun raced away from them as they drove east, and the sky ahead shifted from bright azure to deeper blue. At sunset, they turned off the highway onto the gravel road leading to the cabin.
Dust rose behind the Suburban and hung in the last light. The cabin road was narrow, with pine and scrub closing in on both sides. Ryder kept the speed low enough that the tires didn’t spit rocks. Cell service cut out halfway up the road, but the route was still loaded on his phone. Ryder parked in a secluded turnoff, about half a mile from the cabin, and killed the engine.
Axel opened his door and stepped out. The air was colder here. It smelled like dust, pine resin, and dry grass. The wolf pushed hard under his skin, driving him toward the cabin. It growled, demanding Axel tear Wade apart. Axel gripped the roof rail and held himself still.
Ryder went around to the back, opened the hatch, and started unpacking the drone cases. Foam compartments held the drone body, spare batteries, folded propellers, controller, tablet, and signal booster. He snapped the battery into place, checked the rotors, and then powered up the controller.
Axel stood beside him and watched the boot sequence load. The map was already cached. The camera feed came up black at first, then gray as Ryder lifted the drone from the case and carried it a few steps clear of the vehicle.
“Ready,” Ryder said.
Axel nodded.
The drone rose off the gravel with a thin mechanical whine, climbed through the break in the branches, and turned toward the cabin road. Ryder kept it above the trees at first, then dropped lower where the road opened. The controller screen showed gravel, pine trunks, scrub, and stretches of empty ground silvered by the last of the light.
The road wound through completely isolated country. No houses, no side roads, no lights anywhere. Reese was completely isolated.
The cabin appeared first as a pale shape beyond the trees. Ryder eased the drone forward, and the clearing came into view, small and closed in by darkness. The road ended there. Trees pressed around it. Wade had chosen a perfect trap.
Ryder brought the drone around the clearing in a slow arc, high enough to keep the sound above the trees and far enough back that the cabin filled only part of the screen. The camera adjusted as the last daylight thinned. The pale shape sharpened into logs, porch posts, a green metal roof, and the dark rectangle of the front door.
“There,” Ryder said.
The white Transit sat near the porch with its nose angled toward the road. Axel leaned closer to the screen as Ryder adjusted the zoom. The plate came into focus one character at a time, soft at the edges but readable.
Wade’s van.
Axel noted the confirmation. He’d call Dom on the sat phone as soon as they had eyes on Reese.
